Even when I'm planning on drawing in a cartoony style, I think it's important to start off gathering some ideas from the real world. My daughter was my model for the Sugarplum Fairy, and did a fantastic job of giving me ideas for how she should move and the kind of personality I should give her. i didn't want her to be a cliched blonde-hair-and-candyfloss kind of fairy - more the sort of fairy you could imagine sharing your sandwiches with in the playground

She went through a couple of embarrasing awkward stages before she reached her final tousle-headed fairy look... the early versions make me cringe, but in the interest of public edumacation, I will show them to the world. Here goes nothing....